I enjoyed Knight and Day quite a bit more than I expected to. Mind you, the bar was scraping the ground when I entered the theater. I thought the movie would be a complete disaster. Tom Cruise wore out his welcome with me long before the infamous couch jumping antics,  and while I generally enjoy Diaz, I just wasn’t sure about her playing opposite Cruise.

Cruise stars as CIA agent Roy Miller, who is on the run from his handlers.  He is feverishly  casing an airport when he spies June (played by Cameron Diaz.) Shortly thereafter, he  deliberately bumps into her, staging a “chance” encounter.

A few moments later, the two run into one another again, and you can practically see the gears going in June’s head.  Cute guy+fate = romantic opportunity. Her daydreaming is derailed when she is denied entrance onto the plane that her new friend is boarding.  He assures her, “Everything happens for a reason.”

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Over the past few decades, the concept of the “comic convention” has gone from the dank basements without air conditioning where sweaty fanboys gather to pick through old comics back issues that they can’t find anywhere else, to multi-million dollar franchise and major media show which has become the San Diego Comic-Con.

Documentarian John P. McGarr has taken that evolution down on film, and brought to us The Con. The synopsis at least explains it better.

THE CON is a documentary about conventions over six years in the making, covering over twenty shows. Horror, comic, sci-fi, adult conventions and more! From OJ Simpson’s infamous appearance at the NecroComicon horror convention to San Diego Comic Con, fans, celebrities, promoters and vendors (even the bootleggers!) share their experiences and explain why they’re part of THE CON!

Stan Lee may be apart of this film as a talking head, but this isn’t actually the Morgan Spurlock/Stan Lee comic convention documentary that’s also in production. Check out the full trailer after the jump, keep your eyes peeled for copies of The Con surfacing around local convention DVD booths, ironically enough.

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17 years and over fifty expansions to the card game, Magic: The Gathering is still with us. In addition, the franchise has spawned eight video game releases as well, all with variations of the popular card game’s rules. Some have been direct ports while others take the game in completely new directions. With this year’s E3, Sony Online Entertainment has chosen to step up with one of these new playstyles for the Magic series and introduced Magic: The Gathering – Tactics.

Taking a page from Final Fantasy: Tactics, players play out their monsters and spells on a board and swap back and forth until all of their opponents creatures are dead. It’s somewhat surprising this is the first time Magic has been fought in such a manner.

One would think with the huge variety of characters available to it, this combination would have been a no-brainer. Sony has already confirmed famed characters such as the Lord of the Pit, Raya Dawnbringer and Serra Angel to appear in the game alongside classic spells like Fireball, Ancestral Recall and Lightning Bolt

Sony Online Entertainment will be bringing this title exclusively to the PlayStation 3 and PC. No XBox 360 plans have been made for the title. Take a look below at the E3 Trailer for Magic: The Gathering - Tactics and some screen shots of the upcoming title.

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Like most weeks, this time around we’ve got another bunch of new movies and TV shows hitting DVD and Blu-ray. Some of them are new, some are old and some are hitting Blu-ray for the first time.

Of the ones hitting stores today, we’re most interested in the Blu-ray release of The Last Station, the extra fun and campy Death Race 2000, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Afro Samurai: The Complete Murder Sessions, Riverworld and the action film Green Zone (pictured above with Amy Ryan and Matt Damon).

Movies

A Star Is Born (Blu-ray Book) ~ Judy Garland (Blu-ray)

Close-Up (The Criterion Collection) ~ Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Abolfazl Ahankhah (Blu-ray)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs ~ Bill Hader, Anna Faris (Blu-ray and DVD)

Death Race 2000 (Roger Corman’s Cult Classics) ~ David Carradine, Sylvester Stallone (Blu-ray)

Fireball ~ Ian Somerhalder, Lexa Doig (Blu-ray and DVD)

Green Zone ~ Matt Damon (Blu-ray and DVD)

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As a kid, nothing was better on a very hot and humid summer day in Florida then to swim in our gigantic pool. Since it was Florida, there were many, many hot summer days and laps tend to get boring. Right around the time of The Little Mermaid, my friends and I would jump into the pool, pretend we had rainbow colored fishtails, and have wild adventures under the sea.

As time passed and we lived longer on land, the days of mermaids, sunken ships full of treasure, and underwater kingdoms faded. It was not until viewing the film, Ondine, did I recall these days with a glimmer of marvel and remembered magic.

Ondine is about a fisherman who catches a woman in his nets and starts to believe again that even in a world filled with gloom one can find rays of light in unpredictable places. Like NBC’s show Heroes, this story takes place in the real world and is surprisingly shot in the same location as the film portrays. It doesn’t need crappy CGI or wizard wands bought at Ollivander’s to perpetuate a feeling in the extraordinary, but rather the viewer’s imagination and long forgotten adventures in the swimming pool.

The film combines several different fables of water creatures to form its own slowly discovered mythology. Colin Farrell plays Syracuse, a fisherman down on his luck and struggling to become a better man in a close knit community that refuses to forget his drunken ways. Colin Farrell is the perfect match for this part, as I’m sure he can relate to at least the latter part of his character’s life.

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Since I was first exposed to Conan in cinematic form by Arnold Schwarzenegger and John Milius in 1982′s Conan the Barbarian, that version has been by definitive on screen incarnation of Robert E. Howard’s character. Now, with the reboot of the franchise well underway and a new actor taking on the role, I may need to get used to a whole new version.

Previously, we brought you news of the new actor, Jason Momoa, and some other info from the film. Now, we’ve got another more “official” look at Momoa as Conan in this new photo from the Nu Boyana Film Studios site.

Although it’s just one pic he does look a lot like Conan, especially as envisioned by Frank Frazetta in many of his iconic paintings. Momoa seems to have the look of a true Cimmerian and I, for one, am going to give him a chance to supplant Arnold’s portrayal as my favorite.

The Lionsgate release of Conan, under the direction of Marcus Nispel, in addition to Moma features Rachel Nichols, Stephen Lang, Bob Sapp, Leo Howard, Ron Perlman, Said Taghmaoui and Rose McGowan. Look for it to hit theaters sometime in 2011.

Check out a larger pic of Momoa as Conan after the break.

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With the fun of E3 pretty much over we can again turn our attention to other important matters like comics. In that spirit we’ve got your weekly look at the comics coming out from one of our favorite companies: Marvel. Of the ones dropping this week we’re particularly interested in the latest Secret Warriors, Avengers #2, Powers #5 and Ultimate Comics Avengers 2 #4.

Remember, comics come out on Wednesday this week so be sure to head on over to your favorite comics store early for best selection. Don’t know where your nearest comic store is? Use this handy guide to find one.

Comics On-Sale:

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #635 FYLES COVER
AVENGERS #2 (HA)
AVENGERS #2 IRON MAN BY DESIGN 2.0 VARIANT (HA)
AVENGERS #2 JRJR CHARACTER VARIANT (HA)
DAREDEVIL MGC #26
DRACULA #2
FANTASTIC FOUR #580 (HA)
FRANKEN-CASTLE #18
HERALDS #4
HULK #23 (WWHS)
HULK #23 KUBERT VARIANT (WWHS)

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It’s been quite a journey for the production of Seth Rogen’s The Green Hornet. We all remember when Asian actor/director Stephen Chow (Kung Fu Hustle) was signed to direct and play Kato, and that changed. Then Michel Gondry came aboard, and Nicolas Cage was attached to play the antagonist, and that changed. Christoph Waltz then got the part, but the studio felt the movie would look better in 3D.

Finally, after all of the pieces finally fell into place, we’ve got ourselves a trailer, and not a bad looking one to boot.

The film stars Rogen as billionaire brat Britt Reid, who pretty much does what he wants, and couldn’t care less about the consequences. He’s introduced to Kato (now played by Jay Chou) and they decide to take back their crime-infested city by adopting the persona of The Green Hornet, a masked crime fighter.

The film has been panned by critics who have gotten glimpses of footage, and even the studio has pushed the film back to try and salvage what money they’ve already spent. There’s no telling whether or not the film will be a bust or not, but at least we have a fancy trailer to keep us thinking.

Check it out after the jump, and catch Rogen’s Green Hornet in theaters January 14, 2011.

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One of the best “surprises” of E3 came during the Sony press conference. When it looked like things were winding down, the hyper passive aggressive voice of GLaDOS sounded through the arena. With GLaDOS’s voice came the trailer for Portal 2.

Seen below, years have passed since the escape from Aperture Science where players thought they had killed GLaDOS. Even though there was no cake at the end of the road as promised, players were thrilled to make it out alive.

Now, player’s return to Aperture Science and find themselves in wholly new uncovered and converted sections of the facility. Still using the Aperture Science Hand-held Portal Device (or simply the portal gun), players must endure an ever increasingly difficult series of puzzles based on physics, timing and sometimes plain luck to make it back out alive… and hopefully finally get the cake.

As you will see in the videos below, they have introduced a series of new physics items to help and hinder the progress through the levels of the game. All of these objects can be sent through the portals created by the portal gun as well. The Excursion Funnel acts as a tractor beam to push and pull objects and people through a level. Ariel Faith Plate is a fancy name for a trampoline which launches players in predetermined directions.

The Thermal Discouragement Beam is a bright red laser that can be used both as a weapon through the use of reflective blocks and as a key to open exits to levels. Pneumatic Diversity Vent is kind of like the tubes you see at drive up banks and pharmacies that suck everything up and spit them out at the other end.

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M. Night Shyamalan gets a bad rep sometimes. He’s an excellent storyteller who’s been known to go off of the deep end when it comes to getting his films made, most notably with Lady in the Water, which was basically just a love letter to his kids. We won’t address The Happening.

He seemed to go a bit more mainstream with the upcoming The Last Airbender, but now it seems the writer/director is getting back to his mysterious roots with his newest film. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film’s premise, and even the title, is a mystery. Nothing has been revealed about the plot or the genre. What we do know is that Shyamalan has apparently already locked in three big actors for the film.

No details are known about the project, but it comes with some major acting talent: We’ve learned that Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow and Bruce Willis are loosely attached to star in the film.

Shyamalan is famously secretive, and this project is no exception: Only top studio execs have read the script, and they were required to allow a Shyamalan assistant to supervise the process. When the execs finished reading, the assistant took the script back and left.

This project could be just what Night needs to get back to where he was circa 1997 with the success of The Sixth Sense. He’s got a pretty good track record with Willis, as he was in both Sense and Unbreakable.

Not sure where he could possibly go with this film, as he’s already touched on fairy tales, aliens, ghosts, and evil trees. We’ll be sure to keep a close eye on news from this upcoming project.

One of the best parts of E3 is getting a first look at titles not yet on gamers’ radars. One of the games that is popped up during the show was Snowblind Studios’ The Lord of the Rings: War in the North. In it, players will be given the opportunity to further explore on the PlayStation 3 and XBox 360 the world of Middle Earth that J.R.R. Tolkien first created over sixty years ago .

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North evolves the Action/RPG genre through innovative online, interdependent co-op play for up to three players, who form their own Fellowship and engage in brutal combat. Gamers must play together or perish as they explore previously unexplored lands, story elements and characters as well as elements familiar from past feature films. Players engage in extensive character customization and development, expansive co-op gameplay options and upgradeable weapons, skills and special abilities.

With the film rights being sold to Warner Bros. and the game being distributed from Warner Bros. Interactive, expect some visual tie ins between the two. Playing as either human, dwarf or elf, the action of the game looks to take a darker and more graphic visual style than the violence portrayed in previous The Lord of the Rings titles.

Check out the trailer for The Lord of the Rings: War in the North after the jump.

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To be honest, I was a fan of Dr. Strange comics growing up. But now that I’m a bit older and, perhaps, a bit wiser I have to wonder if a Dr. Strange movie is really what’s needed — especially given the mostly unfortunate treatment of comic book movies these days. Still, regardless of my feelings about the idea, it seems an adaptation of the Marvel comic is moving forward with Conan writers Thomas Donnelly and Joshua Openheimer now on board to pen the script.

Dr. Strange, which has a long development history and various writers and directors involved including Wes Craven, Dovid Goyer, Steven Norrington and Guillermo del Toro, will reportedly be one of the first projects to be developed now that Disney owns Marvel. At least with Disney now involved, Marvel should have the financial backing to do the film justice on a production value basis and hopefully carry on the high quality of films like Iron Man.

Created by Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko in 1963, Dr. Strange was a brilliant yet shallow surgeon who lost his skills after a car accident damages his hands. Seeking ways to heal his injuries he instead discovers the ability to harness his psychic and magical powers and use them to battle evil.

It’s hard and probably unwise to judge a project with only this much info to go on. So, instead of thinking its probably not going to be good or wonder if it should be made at all, I will instead try to give it the benefit of the doubt. Let’s hope, in the end, it turns out more like Iron Man and The Dark Knight and less like Daredevil or Jonah Hex.